[Nick Robinson]

The truth is somewhere in the middle. You’ll almost always lose some of the size, fullness and strength gained on cycle because you’re no longer in a supraphysiological environment, but if your TRT dose is adequate, training stays hard, nutrition is bang on and you recover well, you can retain the majority of actual muscle tissue. Most of what people lose initially is glycogen, water and the “on-cycle look.” The key is not trying to train or eat exactly as you did on 500 mg—reduce fatigue, keep progressive overload where possible, and let your health markers recover. Long-term consistency beats trying to stay permanently in blast mode.

Sasan, thanks for this. Am I on the right track, if I think of it like a push, gain muscle tissue, cruise and lose some, but still holding onto some new muscle tissue, just not 100%, with the idea being once health is back inline, pushing again and thus slowly building on the real muscle tissue gains over time. For example, I start at 160lb, blast and get to 175lb. I come off and end up at 168lb, whilst on a cruise but still treating the journey was importantly as the blast. I later blast from 168 and get to 185lb, go back to a cruise and fall back to 176lb, rinse and repeat? I realize the TRT dose for the cruise will play a role too, and I guess there will be an upper ceiling at say a 250mg TRT+ dose. But is this essentially how I should think about it?

Thank you again,

Nick.

[Nick Robinson]

Wanted to give an update. Surgery was July 1st. My original starting weight, after previously dropping my testosterone to 200mg/wk, was 162lb from 166lb on 400mg/wk. I did the surgery and within a week dropped to 154lb. Once I could workout, about 10 days later, I upped my test to 250mg/wk after my bloodwork looked great, and I am back to 160lb but nicely lean to plan for my next cycle.

Thanks for all of the help,

Nick.

[Nick Robinson]

Thank you – I will keep you posted. Day 1 post-op has been very painful but i am getting my calories in which is great.

Thanks again,

Nick.

[Nick Robinson]

Sasan/Marc-

Thank you for your very helpful advice and encouragement. I am going to take that advice for maintenance calories -~5% too. I completely forgot to mention I am on 2mg of Reta, so I am leaning on it a little too.

This was super helpful and put my anxiety at bay. Thank you guys.

Nick.